Getting your heart broken is a real risk of caring about someone. Caring anyway is still worth it.

No version of caring about someone comes with a guarantee, and anyone offering you one is describing something smaller than caring. The risk is not a flaw in how you are doing it; it is built into the thing itself. Protecting yourself by caring less does work, in the way unplugging a fridge saves electricity. You lose exactly what you were trying to keep.

If you have been holding back with someone, choose one honest thing to say or do this week rather than all of them. Small and real beats guarded and clever.